


Another Life I'll Have To Wait

by silkskin



Category: New Mutants (Comics), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol, Bar fights, Bittersweet Ending, Crying, Drunken Shenanigans, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Gay yearning, Humor, M/M, Pining, Unrequited Love, basically bobby and illyana bond over falling in love with people who are getting married, wlw mlm solidarity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:28:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23495338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silkskin/pseuds/silkskin
Summary: The day after Kitty gets engaged to Peter, Bobby finds Illyana and drags her out for a night of bonding, drinking, and mayhem. He figures she needs someone who gets it. It's not their fault they both fell in love with people getting married to someone else.
Relationships: Illyana Rasputin & Roberto Da Costa, Kitty Pryde/Illyana Rasputin, Roberto da Costa/Sam Guthrie
Comments: 13
Kudos: 75





	Another Life I'll Have To Wait

**Author's Note:**

> this started off as a goofy concept and then descended very quickly into Emotion so i’m like, apologising in advance for the corniness. i don’t think either relationship is actually unrequited, and i can only write it like this bc in my heart they’re endgame lol
> 
> also! while this fic operates within canon, it does so extremely loosely in an attempt to make this as cohesive as a story as possible so sorry if i get stuff wrong! 
> 
> title is from good wife by mika! it’s literally THE samberto song and also works for katyana. if you’ve been following me on twitter you’ll know [exactly how i feel about it LMFAO](https://twitter.com/kindlestuck/status/1239952351831584773)

It’s Bobby who’s the first to find her.

“Sooooo,” he starts, long drawled ‘o’ hanging in the air like a threat. He doesn’t finish, mainly because Illyana can recognise that tone of voice from miles away, and she’s pelted a pillow in his direction the moment he enters the room.

It hits him square in the face. “Mmff—"

“Go away,” Illyana groans, still facedown on her bed.

Bobby ignores her. “How you feelin’?”

His voice is light, as always, a faint grin on his lips, but there’s a look in his eyes more sombre than she’s ever seen. Illyana wants to slap it out of him.

“Go _away_ , Bobby. I’m fine.” She raises her head to glare at him. He only moves to lie down next to her, bodily shifting her legs to make room. Asshole.

“Mhm,” Bobby nods. “Ororo the one to break it to you too?”

“Worse,” Illyana grumbles. “Piotr.”

“Ouch.” A pause. “She’s been engaged before, you know.”

“Not to my brother,” Illyana says.

“Yeah, I know.” Bobby sighs. “…Sam’s the one who told me about, you know, Izzy.” He’s tracing her covers with fidgeting fingers. Round and round in a circle, like a nervous tick.

“Not fun,” he continues, voice even lighter, grin even wider than before. Eyes closed, on his back to face the ceiling. Illyana thinks he looks like a rubber band about to snap.

“How long did it take you?” she asks, and hates the way her voice breaks on the ‘take’, as if the tiny plosives in the word itself were enough to crack her composure.

Bobby doesn’t need to ask what she means. “Past tense? You expect too much of me.”

“Reassuring,” Illyana says, drily.

Bobby turns on his side, finally making eye contact with her. “It gets better.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

Bobby huffs, looks away. “No, it doesn’t,” he admits. “But it gets… bearable.”

“Who knows,” he laughs, rolling onto his back again, “maybe we’ll look back on this and laugh at how melodramatic we’re being. We’re the New Mutants, right, we’ll never stop being family.”

Illyana wants him to stop talking, now. She knows empty platitudes when she sees them. Thinks he does too. He doesn’t stop, though. Illyana listens to Bobby go on and on about Sam’s son and how cute he is, how old it makes him feel, can you believe their friends are having kids now, something about Izzy, something about the Avengers, maybe. She kinda stopped listening three sentences in. Bobby radiates warmth—always has, a side effect of his powers—and Illyana lets the heat and the drone of his speech fill up her room. At some point the sun sets, or maybe it was already setting when Bobby came in, she doesn’t know. Neither of them stand up to turn on the light. Bobby’s warmth doesn’t falter.

“God,” Illyana says, into the darkness, and it’s a choked sound, like drowning, like scraping the inside of her throat with dry earth. Dragging itself out of her and cutting through the atmosphere in a single syllable. “I just—I wish I’d just _told_ her.”

She’s cut him off mid-sentence. There’s a beat, and then Bobby draws her into his arms and uses his shirt to wipe away her tears. Illyana goes limply. She didn’t even know she’d been crying.

“I know,” he says, softly. “I know.”

“You know what we need to do?” Bobby says, in the morning, as Illyana beats the shit out of a danger room hologram, “We need to go out. Get smashed.”

Illyana growls, swinging her sword up into a blistering arc to split the laser gun in front of her in two. Bobby’s been following her for the whole day, tailing her like a lost puppy. Illyana wishes she could pretend she was frustrated, but both of them know that if she really wanted him gone, he wouldn’t be here.

“When?” Illyana says, waiting for the room to load another opponent. Several brood flicker into physicality in front of her, and she settles back into her stance.

“Tonight,” Bobby says. “You’re free, right?” He’s standing nonchalantly in the middle of the battlefield, biting into an apple.

Illyana considers it. Then she dashes forward, blade striking at one brood’s legs before she catches the momentum and swings it across her body into a second. She kicks off the ground, stabbing one in the eye. Lands in a crouch, backhands another, spins and slices into a fifth. Tries to keep all her focus into the weight of a sword in her hands, the satisfying impact of another opponent downed, the ache in her muscles as she pushes and pushes and pushes.

“Watch it,” Bobby calls, and Illyana sees the last one creeping up on her out of the corner of her eye. Summons a disk underneath her as she teleports above it and slams her sword down in one final move. The brood disintegrates beneath her. The Danger Room lets out a little victory fanfare that sounds suspiciously like a certain Rick Astley hit single.

Bobby snorts. “Kids got to the Danger Room controls again, I see.”

“Fine,” Illyana sighs. “Let’s do it.” She wipes the sweat from her brow. Loads the next opponent. Before Bobby can start cheering, she points her sword at him and says, “But _I_ get to choose where. Your taste sucks.”

“You wound me, Rasputin,” Bobby says, clutching at his chest.

“You’ll live,” Illyana says, and then commands the Danger Room to turn safety protocols off.

The room flashes red. Bobby’s eyes widen, half-eaten apple still in his hand. “Shit, wait—“

Illyana’s sitting on the steps outside the school, waiting for Bobby to get ready. It’s a cool night, sun already set, and she’s both comforted and unnerved by how quiet the school seems to be. It’s a rare night free of chaos, soft chatter behind the curtains, people winding down. Retiring to rooms, alone, or not. Illyana sighs; a distraction would’ve been welcome. The door swings open behind her, and she turns to see Bobby step out. Speak of the devil.

“Your outfit looks like shit,” Illyana says immediately. Bobby’s wearing the ugliest Hawaiian shirt she’s ever seen, and she’s lived with him for years—she’s seen some pretty bad ones.

“You love it,” Bobby says, unfazed.

“Yeah,” she says. Illyana’s own outfit is just a leather jacket thrown over a white singlet and some ripped jeans. She stands.

“So, where to first?” he asks, slinging an arm over her shoulder.

Illyana summons a stepping disk and lets them both fall into the glow.

They land in some dingy alley next to the main street, and she leads Bobby up to the front of a bar. There’s a surprisingly small amount of people about for a Saturday night, but the city thrums with activity. The front of the bar is painted a deep black, scratchy and peeling, neon signs over the top.

At Bobby’s skeptical look, Illyana says, “It’s one of those that looks better on the inside. Come on.”

There’s a live band inside, up on a stage, and quite a few people on the dance floor. The room rings with one of those songs that always sound familiar but that she can never remember the name of, lyrics just out of reach.

“Wow, ‘Yana, this place is like, really goth,” Bobby says, falling back to eye the skull decorations and brick walls.

Illyana rolls her eyes. “I like it,” she calls over her shoulder.

“Big surprise, demon-girl.”

Illyana ignores him, walks straight up to the counter and orders a beer. Bobby sidles up next to her a few seconds later. “Vodka pink lemonade,” he tells the bartender.

Illyana raises her eyebrows, incredulous. Bobby looks her straight in the eye. He’s a couple inches taller than her, and it still drives her insane. He used to be shorter.

“Pink lemonade tastes better than normal lemonade,” he says, innocently.

“That’s not the point.”

Bobby winks at her. Illyana doesn’t even know what that means. She thinks he just does it on reflex whenever he runs out of things to say.

She pays for her beer and takes the longest gulp in the world.

“I could still tell her," Illyana says, unconvincingly, two drinks in.

“You should," Bobby says, automatically, “because if I was her, I—“

“—would want to know. Yeah, yeah, you’re not the only one who got _that_ spiel from Dani."

“How does she just know!” Bobby throws his hands up in the air. “You think it’s some remnant of her mutant ability? Does gay pining count as someone’s deepest fears and desires?”

“It’s her Valkyrie powers knowing that this bullshit will be the end of me,” Illyana says, deadpan.

Bobby snorts.

“She haunts me, ‘Yana,” he says, face suddenly solemn. “My inner Dani. Every time I do something stupid, I can hear her sitting on my shoulder muttering as she shakes her head and rubs her temples."

“So, all the time?"

Bobby shoves her so hard she almost falls off her chair. Illyana lets out a sharp burst of laughter. First time today.

Bobby grins. “There’s that smile.”

“Ugh, don’t be creepy,” Illyana says, immediately shoving him back. He lets out a squawk as some vodka pink lemonade spills on his shirt.

After he finishes his drink, Bobby elbows her.

“Hey. We should dance,” he says, nodding towards the floor. He doesn’t wait for an answer, dragging her over towards the band. Illyana throws back the rest of her drink and goes with him.

The band is playing some old classic tune with a beat loud enough for Illyana to feel it in her chest. Bobby takes her hand and drags her right into the centre of the floor and the chaos. He’s pulling ridiculous moves in an attempt to coax her into dancing, raising his eyebrows and winking at her so exaggeratedly she finally caves and lets herself go, if only out of pity.

Bobby’s a good dancer, which is annoying, and he knows it, which is even worse. He moves easily to the music and loves to draw attention to himself. Illyana finds it infuriating; she just tries to lose herself in the bodies. She’s danced before, recently even, but always with the X-Men. There’s something different, she thinks, about being around a bunch of strangers. None of them know who she is, and none of them care. She feels a little freer. Illyana closes her eyes to the pulsing lights and lets the beat carry her away.

“Is Kitty the reason you never fell for my devilish charms, Rasputin?”

Illyana rolls her eyes. She kind of hates how her heart skips a beat when Bobby says Kitty’s name. They’re at a second place, still Illyana’s choice—left the first one when the band stepped down, and she's starting to feel the alcohol. Bobby’s nursing his fourth drink; Illyana’s just glad it’s not pink lemonade this time.

“Devilish is _not_ what I’d call them. And I’d know.”

“Hey, Limbo isn’t the same as hell. We’ve been, remember.”

“Yeah, I remember the part where Amara went on a date with the actual devil before she went on one with you.”

“Stop! Don’t remind me!” Bobby whines, throwing an arm over his eyes dramatically.

“Mhm.”

“What _would_ you call my charms?” Bobby asks, drunkenly resting his chin on his hand and leaning dangerously close to her.

“Annoying. _Especially_ that year,” she says, shoving him away with a laugh. She narrows her eyes. “Sam got anything to do with it?”

“I—“ Bobby looks cornered for a brief second, and then smooths his expression over. “What are you talking about?”

“That you were only flirty and obnoxious with Amara around _him_ , when you knew he used to have a crush on her—“

Bobby groans, rubbing his eyes. “Okay, okay! You had it all figured out, huh. Was it that obvious?”

Illyana shrugs. “Nah. Not unless you knew.”

“I just thought I could, you know, provoke a reaction. Make him jealous, or something. Distract myself while I was at it.”

His voice has gone quiet, eyes looking somewhere out to space. Illyana curses internally. She shouldn’t have brought it up.

“Hey, it’s okay,” she starts, putting her hand awkwardly on his arm. “I’m sure he, uh, loves you back, in his own way.”

Bobby raises his eyebrow at her, smiling. “You kinda suck at comforting people, you know?”

Illyana goes red. “Shut up.”

He laughs. “I mean, it worked? Watching you try made me feel better, anyway.”

She throws her hands up in the air. “I’m just trying to say, I know how it feels, I guess. Like, every highschool prom we went to was a disaster, remember?”

“Because we got attacked by supervillains?”

“ _Because_ I had to watch a bunch of stupid boys try to flirt with the girl I…” Illyana trails off.

“Loooove?” Bobby says, dragging out the syllable and raising higher in pitch. Despite everything, Illyana feels her cheeks grow hot.

“Ugh. You knew that.”

Bobby shakes his head. “Sure, but you’ve never actually said it directly, you know. The L word.”

“Oh, grow up.”

Bobby bats his eyelashes at her and drops his voice low. “Oh, Illyana, do you, you know, _like_ -like Kitty?”

“Oh my god,” she says, rubbing at her temples.

“Hey, don’t roll your eyes at me! You can do it. Say the L word! You love her, right?”

Bobby’s refusing to give up, but Illyana guesses she’s had enough drinks for her to be willing to entertain him, because she’s struggling not to laugh. She sighs. “Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

She grabs the rest of Bobby’s drink and sculls it. He lets her—payment for the confession. She slams the glass down.

“Yes, I’m in love with Kitty.”

Bobby grins.

“HEY EVERYONE,” he shouts suddenly, turning to rest of the bar. Illyana shoves her hand up to his face to shut him up and misses by at least a foot. He stands up on the chair.

“My friend’s in loooooooove,” he says, sing-song, and Illyana wants to tell him to sit back down and stop bothering everyone in this goddamn bar, but she can’t stop laughing. She loves Kitty. She’s in love with Kitty. She’s known this, always known this, and this isn’t the first time she’s said it out loud—but it’s the first time she’s said it to Bobby, said it to anyone in a long time. It feels good.

She jumps up on the chair too, shouting at him.

“ _You’re_ in love too!” she says, accusingly.

“We’re _both_ stupid lovesick idiots!” he says, not missing a beat.

“Sit down!” Someone’s shouting at them from the other side of the room.

“Fuck no!” Illyana yells back. Bobby’s dancing—there’s a song blasting on the speakers; Illyana recognises it as some 80s song she’d loved when they were kids, but the rickety chair he’s standing on looks like it might not be able to take much more abuse.

“Watch it, hotshot, you’re gonna fall—“

“Ouch,” Bobby says, holding his own cold glass to his forehead.

“This is your own fault.”

“Yeah, yeah. How come _you_ didn’t fall off?”

“Because I’m better than you.”

Bobby seems to accept that, going back to rubbing at his bruise. They moved to the bar after Bobby’s tumble, getting dirty but smug looks from everyone they annoyed with their little outburst.

“Hey, about before,” Illyana says, “I know I don’t say it much, but. You know I love you, right?”

Bobby smiles. “Another love confession? This isn’t even the first date—“

Illyana rolls his eyes and cuts him off. “Yes. I love you. I love all the New Mutants. You guys are my family, seriously. And I’m sorry if being drunk is the only time I get emotional enough to express it, but—”

Bobby pulls her into a hug for the second time in two days. Illyana’s not a hugger; he knows this. She hugs him back anyway.

“I know. Love you too, ‘Yana.”

His voice is sounding a little watery, but it’s okay. She thinks hers might be too.

They’re at the third and the last bar on Illyana’s list, eight drinks in, and it’s probably an issue that she doesn’t remember how she got there.

“I miss him,” Bobby says, so quietly amongst the thumping music that Illyana isn’t sure he said anything at all. “I miss him so much it hurts.”

Illyana rubs his back.

“He’s living in fucking space right now. With a wife and kid. Can you believe it? How did this—how did it all happen so fast,” he says, and rubs at his eyes. They’re wet; Illyana pretends not to notice. She’s never heard his voice sound so broken before. 

She doesn’t know what to say. Bobby’s right; comforting people has never really been her forte.

“I used to see him every damn day and now I’m lucky if I see him every two weeks. And I don’t hate Izzy—how can I, when he’s so happy with her? I just wanted—I just want—“

“—more time,” Illyana finishes.

Bobby lets out a shaky sigh. “Yeah.”

Illyana isn’t a hugger, no, but Bobby is. So she puts her arm around his shoulder and pulls him into a tight embrace, awkward and rough. She doesn’t know what to say, but she hopes this will say it for her. He laughs gently into her hair, tension in his frame loosening and arms going easily around her to squeeze back. He sighs again.

“I miss him,” Bobby says, and his voice sounds raw enough to scrape the world hollow.

Bobby’s arguing with some people. Illyana doesn’t know who, doesn’t know why, alcohol making her brain fuzzy. She only notices that the people are taller than the both of them, and the guy at the front has the ugliest greasiest beard she’s ever seen and when he speaks some of his spittle flies onto the bar counter in front of them. Bobby’s getting riled up, she can feel it. Illyana finishes off her drink and grabs his shoulder, mumbling at him to calm down and leave these dickheads alone—but then Greasy Beard _shoves_ Bobby. Not hard, but enough for him to stumble back a little.

Illyana’s vision goes red. She goes from trying to stop a fight to throwing the first punch.

Her fist rams straight into Greasy Beard’s nose. She hopes she’s broken it. Someone swears, someone else cries out, but all she can hear is Bobby’s incredulous laughter behind her. Someone takes a swing at her, and she leans easily out of the way, lets the momentum take the guy right past her.

“Bar fight!” Bobby shouts, his anger fizzling to excitement in an instant. He charges straight into the person in front of him, yelling drunkenly.

“No powers!” Illyana hisses, blocking a punch and kicking a guy in the nuts. Someone grabs her from behind, and she flips him in one fluid motion. Somewhere in her intoxicated state there’s a voice saying this is a bad idea. She thinks it sounds a bit like Dani. Maybe even Sam.

Someone kicks at her legs from behind, and Illyana falls heavily. She rolls quickly to the side, but Bobby’s already rammed a beer glass into their head. Illyana growls and rubs at her side; it’s gonna bruise in the morning. Alcohol’s getting to her even more than she thought if she couldn’t avoid that. She directs her anger into throwing a chair at someone. Bobby whoops.

When security finally arrives, they’re standing in the middle of a battlefield, furniture strewn across the floor and six groaning people on the ground around them.

They get kicked out, obviously.

Illyana tries to save her laughter until they’re outside, but she doesn’t quite make it. They get manhandled roughly out the doors, and she’s hiccupping with laughter into Bobby’s shoulder the whole time.

“Aw jeez, I think that guy nicked me,” Bobby says, cradling his bruised jaw, though he’s still laughing.

“You should’ve seen his face when you tackled him,” Illyana says, stomach hurting from laughing so hard.

“God. I haven’t gotten into a bar fight since… shit.” Bobby says, sobering suddenly and running a hand through his curls.

“Shit,” Illyana repeats. “I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s—“ Bobby lets out a pained laugh, and then winces, rubbing at his jaw again. “God, that fucker really got me, huh?”

“Hey, don’t blame yourself. We’re hardly in top shape,” Illyana says.

“So, where to now? You have any more places up your sleeve?”

“Nah,” Illyana says, “Now we sit in the park and tap into my reserves.”

Illyana summons a stepping disk once they’ve moved a little ways from the main street, and sticks her arm in to rifle through her storage in Limbo. She pulls out two bottles of decent wine.

“Holy shit, Rasputin.”

Illyana’s lying face up in the park, rocks digging into her back. The stars blink at her from far above, and she reaches a hand out to them like she can feel every inch of space between. Her head’s buzzing from the alcohol, senses fuzzy, and she thinks she’s definitely hit that part in a night out where she’s getting too melodramatic for her own good.

Bobby’s lying next to her, eyes fixed on the stars, an expression so longing on his face that Illyana can’t look at him for long. She doesn’t need to be a genius to know what he’s thinking about.

Kitty told her once, about her time in space. Another romance, another Peter. Said it was so full and so empty at the same time, endless distance between one star and the next crossed in a impossibly short amount of time. That time felt weird sometimes, without the Earth’s day and night cycles, like they could drift forever in that star-scattered place and not even realise. She’d said it like it was a bad thing, but Illyana had thought it’d sounded nice. She’s only been to space a few times, and not for any long stretch like Kitty had.

Illyana lets out a long breath. She feels like how Limbo felt when it was taken over by the techno-organic virus. All wrong brittle edges and nonsensical thoughts. Her world crumbling beneath her. She thought she’d have more time. She’s had years, but more than anything she just wants _more_. More time. More something. A something that pulls at the inside of her ribs like wire and feels like it’s about to burst through her skin.

It’s a moment before she realises the frustrated yelling she’s hearing is coming from her. Bobby lets out a rough cheer. “Get it all out!”

Illyana complies, another childish scream tearing itself from her throat, trying to make that—that thing lodged in her chest to burst, to release her from the endless tension. It doesn’t. It doesn’t, but she screams anyway. Bobby joins her. Their shouts echo into the darkness and probably scare a few late night bystanders.

She feels fifteen again, camping on the school grounds, the team lying beside her. Laughing and shrieking into the night. Feeling so small under the stars that she wouldn’t have been surprised if the ground just swallowed her up. Fifteen again, with a different warmth at her side, a different set of curls at her shoulder.

She wants to go back. She wants to go back and sit in that time, that feeling, forever.

“I really loved her, y’know,” she says, after their throats have gone hoarse and she’s shoved Bobby’s ridiculous curls out of her face. “I still do.”

Illyana lets out a shuddering breath. “She—she was half the reason I survived my teens. Piotr was the other half. And now ’m losing both. I’m losing _her_.”

“You’re not losing anyone,” Bobby says, softly.

“You know that’s not true. You know. You _know_.” The stars are blurring above her. She’s breathing hard, out of air, that something in her brimming like she’s on the edge of a cliff. Like she’s about to fall.

She wishes she could just let go.

Bobby turns, arm going around her to hug her fiercely.

“I don’t know what to do, Bobby, I don’t know, I don’t know—” she’s saying, blubbering into his chest, and she thinks sober Illyana will definitely be mortified in the morning but right now all she wants to do is cling to her friend and cry.

“Oh, Illyana, you liar,” he says, wiping away her tears. “Y'know exactly what to do. You keep going. She’s your best friend, and he’s your brother, and you love them, and most importantly, they love you.”

Illyana sniffles pathetically, but she smiles tearfully against his shoulder. “You’re better 't comforting people than I am, huh?”

“Duh,” he says, smiling.

Illyana sighs, and closes her eyes.

“I don’t think I’ll ever stop loving her, Bobby,” she whispers.

“I know,” he says, softly. “I know.” And he does.

“Hey,” Bobby says, after a while, when the tears have stopped and they’re just lying down in the quiet darkness to watch the stars, “’m gonna climb that tree.”

Illyana lets out a laugh. “Why?”

“I wanna be closer to the stars.”

“To Sam, you mean.”

“Same difference.”

“That feels like a bad idea,” Illyana says.

“Okay, _Dani_.”

Illyana makes an exaggerated noise like she’s been wounded, grinning, and then watches as Bobby stands and makes grabby hands at the first branch he sees. He jumps up, and then swings his body over the branch until he’s stomach down on it. A very slow moment later, he stands up and does the same to the next. It’s painfully inefficient, and definitely dangerous.

“Come join me, _menina_!” he shouts.

“You suck at climbin’ trees!” she shouts back, but she gets up off the ground anyway.

“I do not.”

“Yes, you do.” She says, and then she puts her leg up onto the tree knot and starts to scale the trunk. “This is how you climb a tree.”

“Yeah, if you’re boring. Watch!” And then Bobby jumps from his branch, swinging from the next and landing not too clumsily on another. Illyana has a moment where she’s about to start applauding, only to remember just in time that her hands are the only thing stopping her from falling. She lets out a cheer instead, and then shuffles over to a branch to try the same. Despite his obviously impaired judgement skills, Bobby’d chosen a good tree for climbing.

“You try it!” Bobby shouts.

“What do you think I’m doin', huh?” Illyana jumps, swinging off another branch and landing on one even further away than Bobby’s was. Bobby whistles, and an unspoken competition begins between them, each of them trying to swing and jump higher and farther than the other until Illyana feels like she’s flying in the open air. It’s stupid and childish and dangerous and she loves every second of it.

When they reach the top, sitting right on the edge of the sturdiest branch they find, Bobby reaches out again to the stars. They don’t look any closer, but Illyana feels closer anyway, legs dangling so high off the ground.

Bobby turns and grins at her, then. “What about the next tree over?”

“What?” Illyana says.

“Betcha can’t jump to the next tree.”

“The next—you’ve gotta be kidding, Bobby,” Illyana says, looking at the tree in question. The closest branch is at least 10 feet away.

“So you can’t do it?”

“Didn’t say that.”

“Prove it,” Bobby says, a shit-eating grin on his face.

Illyana hesitates.

“You can’t do it! I knew it!”

That’s it. Illyana claps a hand over his mouth and pulls herself up to standing position. “Shut up, I can, I'll do it, I swear, jus’ watch me—,”

Illyana wakes up on a hard cold floor to the loud clanging of a cell door sliding open.

"Rise and shine, X-Babies." It's Dani's voice, echoing against the steel walls like someone’s thrown a dozen coins thrown into an empty well. Illyana feels like shit.

Somewhere close next to her, registering despite the pain of her migraine, she hears Bobby groan.

Dani claps loudly, purposefully, raising her eyebrows at Illyana and Bobby's prone forms on the ground. Each clap feels like a gunshot digging straight into Illyana’s temples. She shuts her eyes again. Bobby mumbles a long sentence in Portuguese that she’s pretty sure is entirely swear words. She can't feel her arm; he’s been lying on it all night, and her body’s aching all over for unknown reasons.

"What happened?" Illyana mumbles. She’s pretty sure she’s in a holding cell.

She hears Dani's footsteps get louder until she's standing right over them. "They found you screaming in Central Park on top of a tree.”

“Oh god,” Illyana says, cracking her eyes open. “How’d they get us down?”

“They didn’t. You fell, remember?”

That explains the bruises. “Oh, right. Well, we’re mutants. We could handle it.”

“Yeah, and it’s lucky these guys didn’t know that or you would’ve gotten charged for much more than public misdemeanour.”

“We got charged?”

“No, but it was a close call.” She sighs, leaning down towards them. “You guys alright?”

“As soon as the migraine demon that’s currently residing in my head leaves, I will be,” Illyana says.

“I know you guys are dealing with a lot, but be more careful next time, willya?”

Dani knows, of course she does. Illyana feels irrationally angry about it.

“I don’t want to hear it,” Illyana says, rougher than she intended. Dani looks surprised, and then angry, but before she can open her mouth Illyana’s already feeling awful about it. It’s unfair of her, and she knows it. “Sorry—I’m sorry. It… it was a rough night.”

Dani sighs. “I know. A fun one too, I hope?”

Illyana looks at Bobby, curled in a fetal position in his attempt to pretend the both of them aren’t there. She smiles. “Yeah. It was.”

“I’m glad. You know I’m here for you,” Dani says, offering her hand to help her stand.

Illyana stamps down the instinct to shrug Dani's hand away and takes it instead, warm against her own. She lets herself be pulled up, still a little unsteady on her feet. “I know.”

Dani smiles, and then, with a pointed look at the body underneath them, “So, who’s gonna be the one to drag ‘Berto out of here?”

“You’re the leader,” Illyana says.

“Yeah, yeah.” Dani moves and grabs a grumbling Berto’s arms to hoist him onto his feet. “Come on, you big baby.”

“Noooo,” he whines, dramatic as always, “I think I’m dying.”

He falls heavily onto Dani’s shoulder as they walk out of the cell. Dani rolls her eyes. “Yeah well, there’s coffee in the car, if you survive.”

 _That_ makes Bobby perk up. The morning sunlight hits Illyana hard as Dani slowly shepherds the both of them to her car. Illyana raises her arm to say she can teleport them back, but Dani puts it back down.

“No teleporting until the alcohol’s completely out of your system,” she says, firm. “Now get in the car.”

To Bobby’s credit, he does try. It’s just that he ends up retching into the bushes behind the carpark instead.

Dani shakes her head and rubs at her temples. Illyana remembers their conversation from last night and has to hide a smile.

Most of the mansion is still sleeping when Dani dumps them both on the mansion couch with a pair of dubious hangover cures. Xuyen passes by them, not bothering to hide her laughter, and ruffles Bobby’s hair.

“Good night out?”

They mumble an assent, and Xuyen lets out another giggle as she leaves them be. Bobby takes a big swig of his drink. Illyana closes her eyes and tries for peace and quiet, a futile attempt as the bustle of the mansion rises and more and more people begin to wake up on a Sunday morning. Some of the early rising kids run laughing past the corridor into the kitchen, shouting and arguing as usual.

She leans against Bobby’s shoulder. His warmth, as always, never falters. “Thank you,” she whispers, quietly.

“Yeah,” he says, opening his eyes and looking at her, and then, “Well? Do you feel better?”

“No,” Illyana says, thinking about the ache in her chest. “But also, yes.”

Bobby smiles. “Reassuring,” he says, drily.

“I know,” Illyana says. And she does.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! come yell at me about the new mutants on my [twitter](https://twitter.com/kindlestuck) and my [tumblr](https://kindlespark.tumblr.com)!


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